Best Decor on the Macabre (2010)

How many retail stores have signs saying Please dont touch the taxidermy? If your decor needs a touch of the macabre  or youve always wanted to live like the Addams Family  Gold Bug is the place to shop. It helps if you like insects, of which there are many in varied forms (all dead). The stores knowledgeable staffers can tell you whether that preserved butterfly is post-pupa (that makes it look fresher, apparently) or not. Also on display, among the gargoyles, spiders and baby-skull-shaped candle holders, are artist Shelley Kimballs Victims of the Station Fire, a buck and a doe made of papier mache and ash from the 2009 conflagration. Jewelry by the likes of Jamie Joseph and Ria Charisse uses natures finest materials (crystals, sliced minerals) and forms (branches, flowers, more bugs). Theres also clothing suitable for anything from leather fantasies to pirate dreams. Gold Bug is a touch Gothic, a little steampunk  as if Dracula were running the gift shop at the Natural History Museum. 22 E. Union St., Pasadena. (626) 744-9963, goldbugpasadena.com. Lisa Horowitz